GM VP for global manufacturing flies in

GM Group Vice President in charge of Global Manufacturing and Labour Relations, Gary Cowger, has paid a flying visit to Australia to look over the Holden plant at Elizabeth ahead of Pontiac G8 production for the US market.

The Pontiac G8 (pictured, more here) is a model range based on the Holden Commodore -- and to be sold in North America in left-hand drive, with both V6 and V8 engines.

During his stop-over, Mr Cowger addressed some of the questions surrounding the G8 and the Elizabeth facility.

He praised the G8, saying: "I think it's positioned appropriately. NVH, the ride and handling, the smoothness, the execution of the interior, the overall fit and finish and the appearance of the product is really first class. So I'm optimistic that it will do well..."

And when questioned as to whether production of the G8 (or other Commodore variants, for that matter), would be transferred to low-cost labour countries like China or else GM's home turf in North America, he said: "Generally, we tend to still like to build where we sell."

"This plant and... The team here are working well with local unions who have made tremendous gains in productivity and quality. As long as the plant continues to make these kinds of gains in productivity and quality, and building the kind of products we're building here, that's very important and one of the things we look for."

Asked specifically about G8 production being transferred to a plant in North America, he said there were "no plans at this point" to do so.

Cowger effectively backed up his words by drawing the attention of journalists to the "half a billion dollars" invested in upgrading the Elizabeth plant -- money you wouldn't spend if the plant had a limited future ahead of it.

Although the Commodore was the first GM product to be built on the Zeta platform, which was specifically developed by Holden, it's now known that Zeta will support other GM products developed for the North American market.

Following the leak of a contract proposal between the American Union of Auto Workers and GM earlier this year, it's now revealed that two Zeta platforms will be built in a Cadillac plant at Lansing in Michigan.

However, GM remains tight-lipped concerning the Impala -- Chevrolet's nominal Camry competitor, but larger than the Commodore. Currently, the Impala is built on a front-wheel-drive platform, but from 2009, it was to be built at a Canadian plant, on a Zeta platform with rear-wheel drive and approximating the size of the Australian Statesman.

Now, according to Cowger, nothing's a done deal.

"You're speculating that the Impala would become a Zeta-based product, because that's not -- right now -- in the current planning. I think it's a hypothetical question. It would be incompatible right now because today's Impala is off a completely different architecture.

"There's a lot of speculation about what the future of Impala is, but there's no confirmation of what the Chevrolet portfolio -- particularly in the US -- is going to look like going forward."

Work on a Zeta-based Impala for 2009 was reputedly put on hold over concerns that the RWD car wouldn't be as economical as the current FWD model, and therefore, would erode Chevrolet's CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) figures. Cowger's response was not a definite indication that a Zeta Impala won't happen sometime in the future.

If a Zeta Impala goes ahead, it could have some 'cross-pollination' benefits potentially for the local Commodore, since it would be a high-volume, budget-priced car aimed at a similar -- but much larger -- demographic.

Unfortunately, diesel engines for the Commodore won't necessarily be one of those hypothetical benefits.

Cowger says about diesels: "In the US market, because of the NOx requirements and the particulates, you end up fundamentally having to put lots of 'after-treatment' on the diesel to meet those basic requirements.

"So you lose a lot of the efficiency you had gained, on having the diesel in first place.

"Now, having said that, that's a technology issue that we think we can solve, so as we continue to roll out those kind of technologies, they'll be available to use on any global platform."

Cowger deflected questions concerning Holden's plans (if any) for a diesel Commodore.

Holden is looking at the sales of the diesel Astra to determine whether the demand is there to warrant a diesel Commodore variant. At this point, the news isn't good. Holden estimates the market for diesel passenger cars in Australia amounts to no more than two per cent of the total.

Two per cent of domestic Commodore sales in a good year would be around 1200 units -- not many, for the engineering work and cost to develop the application and not much chance of amortising the cost of development with exports to America or the Middle East.

On the other hand, GM does -- by Cowger's own figures -- build two million diesels a year and they are "particularly and prominently in Europe".

But Holden doesn't have any significant export markets in Europe...

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